Towards ecologically sustainable crop production : a South African perspective

Abstract:

Food production comes at an ecological cost, and the lack of sustainability of South Africa’s crop
production systems is becoming increasingly worrisome. While small scale emerging and homestead
subsistence farming are significant in the agricultural sector, food production is dominated by large scale
commercial agriculture. In this paper we analyse the ecological impact of South African commercial crop
production and what can be done about it. Impact categories considered are divided into what we
consider ‘better-researched’ problems: fresh water depletion, salinisation, soil degradation, eutrophication
and land use change; and into what we consider ‘emerging’ problems for agriculture: greenhouse gas
emissions, soil profile acidification, ecotoxicity and non-renewable resource consumption. While there is
a paucity of quantitative information, it is clear that after decades of cultivation many of our
agroecosystems are degraded or degrading. Sustainable crop production and food security are ‘wicked’
problems – containing dynamic social, economic and biophysical complexities. Increased stakeholder
engagement to better understand these problems, the tradeoffs linked to finding solutions and to involve
those with the resources to turn knowledge into action is required. Collecting key data, turning it into
information within local contexts (involving the ecology, agronomy, sociology, psychology, economics
and other disciplines simultaneously) and communicating it effectively to allow learning and adaptive
management at various spatial and temporal scales is essential. An example is the display of river flows
on a website in real-time to help farmers manage and adapt irrigation practices better, and to connect
them with other stakeholders to improve understanding of the responsibilities of managing water at
local and catchment scales.